Butterflies show origin of species as an evolutionary process, not a single event – “The evolution of new species might not be as hard as it seems, even when diverging populations remain in contact and continue to produce offspring…. ‘We find that only a small fraction of the genome is markedly different between closely related species, but then much more of the genome — more than you’d expect — shows similar differences between more distantly related species…. That indicates that the genetic changes that are important for causing speciation are tightly clustered early in speciation, but not so later on in the process; the overall pattern of genome divergence starts slow and then skyrockets.'”

Mating advantage for rare males in wild guppy populations – “Negative frequency-dependent selection (NFDS), a form of selection in which genotypes are favoured when they are rare, can potentially maintain such extensive polymorphism, but few experimental studies have confirmed its operation in nature…. Here we use highly replicated experimental manipulations of natural populations to show that males with rare colour patterns have higher reproductive fitness, demonstrating NFDS mediated by sexual selection. Rare males acquired more mates and sired more offspring compared to common males and, as previously reported, had higher rates of survival.” – h/t rob brooks!

Global patterns of sex-biased migrations in humans – “We found that genetic differentiation between populations was higher for Y chromosome than for the mtDNA at global scales. The migration rate of female might be three times higher than that of male, assuming the effective population size is the same for male and female.” – h/t hbd bibliography!

The rule-dependence model explains the commonalities between the Flynn effect and IQ gains via retesting – “[W]e propose that Flynn effect gains are partly a function of the degree to which a test is dependent on rules or heuristics. This means that testees can become better at solving ‘rule-dependent’ problems over time in response to changing environments, which lead to the improvement of lower-order cognitive processes (such as implicit learning and aspects of working memory). These in turn lead to apparent IQ gains that are partially independent of general intelligence. We argue that the Flynn effect is directly analogous to IQ gains via retesting, noting that Raven’s Progressive Matrices is particularly sensitive to both the effects of retesting and the Flynn effect.” – from woodley and armstrong! (^_^) – see also dr. thompson.

Civilizations rise and fall on the quality of their soil – “Great civilisations have fallen because they failed to prevent the degradation of the soils on which they were founded…. This is according to Professor Mary Scholes and Dr Bob Scholes who have published a paper in the journal Science, which describes how the productivity of many lands has been dramatically reduced as a result of soil erosion, accumulation of salinity, and nutrient depletion.”

Bad reporting generates bad arguments – “The Sunday Times gets 3.5 million readers a week. Anything mentioned in it has a chance of influencing public understanding and opinion in Britain. Last week they did a piece on Professor Robert Plomin’s recent book ‘G is for Genes’ which focuses on the genetic contribution to scholastic achievement. The newspaper’s coverage was misleading….” – of course. – from dr. james thompson.

Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement – “We find that embryo selection, on its own, may have significant impacts, but likely not drastic ones, over the next 50 years, though large effects could accumulate over multiple generations. However, there is a complementary technology, stem cell-derived gametes, which has been making rapid progress and which could amplify the impact of embryo selection, enabling very large changes if successfully applied to humans.” – h/t mike anissimov!

Cooperation and conflict between women in the family – “Reproductive competition within and between families may have underpinned the biological evolution of fertility patterns (such as menopause) and the cultural evolution of marriage, residence, and inheritance norms (such as late male marriage or primogeniture), which can enhance cooperation and minimize the observed incidence of such conflicts.”

Bone flute discovery indicates 9000 years of Chinese music tradition – “Archaeologists announced the discovery of three ancient flutes made of red-crowned crane bones that may prove that Chinese have been playing music for 9,000 years. The flutes were excavated at an ancient tomb in the site of a Neolithic settlement in Henan Province…. The bone flutes, pictured above, are thought to be the world’s earliest heptatonic musical instruments ever discovered.”

Total Fertility Rate – “Oversimplifying, if your tribe has 60 men and 40 women, if each woman has two kids during her lifetime, when the next generation turns over, your population will have declined from 100 people to 80. Conversely, if your tribe has 40 men and 60 women, and each woman has two kids, your tribe will have grown from 100 to 120. The female sex is the limiting factor when it comes to reproduction, after all.” – from the awesome epigone.

Earlier Onset of Puberty in Girls Linked to Obesity – “[T]he respective ages at the onset of breast development varied by race, body mass index (obesity), and geographic location. Breast development began in white, non-Hispanic girls, at a median age of 9.7 years, earlier than previously reported. Black girls continue to experience breast development earlier than white girls, at a median age of 8.8 years. The median age for Hispanic girls in the study was 9.3 years, and 9.7 years for Asian girls. Body mass index was a stronger predictor of earlier puberty than race or ethnicity.” – h/t hbd bibliography!

What color are Whites? – “In reality, most *Français de souche* act as individuals and have only a weak sense of their collective interest. Collective action is instead wielded by better organized factions, particularly the globalized business community—which lobbies hard to outsource employment to low-wage countries and insource low-wage workers.” – from peter frost.

bonus bonus: There’s a global morality gap — and it’s getting wider – “It is now clear, though not much talked about, that humanity, all 7.1 billion of us, tends to fall into one of two distinct camps. On the one side are those who buy into the whole post-Enlightenment human rights revolution. For them the moral trajectory of the last 300 years is clear: once we were brutal savages; in a few decades, the whole planet will basically be Denmark, ruled by the shades of Mandela and Shami Chakrabarti. And there’s some truth in this trajectory — except for the fact that it only applies to half the planet. The other half resolutely follows a different moral code: might is right, all men were not created equal and there is a right and a wrong form of sexual orientation. You can identify those countries in the dark half of the divide by their attitudes to homosexuality and women; to honour killings, race, disability, mental illness, religious minorities and to crime, torture and punishment, even animal rights and the environment.” – h/t ed west!

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Founding of the Darien Colony – “The Darien Colony [in panama!] was founded by Scottish emigrants on November 3rd, 1698. But it all went horribly wrong.”